Nowadays, medical workers usually use endoscopy to perform screening and treatment of gastrointestinal (GI) tracts related diseases. This may involve the implantation of intrafluidtric balloon, observing and photographing tissue, taking biopsy, and the activation of hemostasis. In conventional method, an endoscopy is introduced into a patient through the mouth or colon. This procedure requires sedation, and could induce abdominal pain and distention to patients. Non-invasive treatments and investigation of the GI tracts can increase patients' willingness to undergo regular disease screening, enhance patients' clinical experience, and resolve the problem with patients discomfort during endoscopy examination. Recently, therapeutic wireless capsule endoscopy (WCE) system has been introduced to provide endoscopic images from the intestines for diagnosis and treatment for GI tracts related diseases, and therefore enabling the non-invasive examination of the GI tracts.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,852,083B2 discloses a self-stabilized encapsulated imaging system comprising a swallowable capsule and an expandable material attached to an end of the capsule. The expandable material is capable of swelling due to absorption of gastrointestinal fluid for stabilizing said capsule against tumbling in the gastrointestinal organ, while expansion of the expandable material can't be accurately controlled.
US 20050029437 A1 discloses a capsule optical sensor. The capsule optical sensor includes an illuminator producing light in the wavelength range from 600 to 2000 nm and the sensor has a photoelectric detection element and a variable spectroscopic element in front of a light receiving surface of the photoelectric detection element.
US 20050183733 A1 discloses a capsule type medical device system. The system includes an electrode on the surface of the capsule type medical and an expandable balloon for providing close contact between the electrode and living body tissues. However, the purpose of the electrode is to propel the capsule type medical device by applying electrical stimulus to living body tissues, and the expandable balloon can't be accurately controlled and can't provide enough force to anchor the capsule at a specific position.
US 20100137683 A1 discloses a capsule-type endoscope having sensor and communication method thereof. The capsule-type endoscope includes one or more sensors for obtaining information related to the inside of the body, the sensor can be pH sensor, temperature sensor, or pressure sensor. However, the capsule-type endoscope cannot determine the location of the capsule.
US 20110245604 A1 discloses a capsule endoscopy system. The system includes an external control system comprising a data acquisition module for acquainting images from an endoscopic capsule, a remote control module for sending the images from the data acquisition module to a display module. An electronic switch is integrated in the endoscopic capsule and the external control system can control the activation of the capsule remotely. However, the capsule cannot process image data and perform treatment by itself.
US 2011/0245611 A1 discloses an expandable capsule endoscope and expandable capsule endoscope system. The purpose of US 2011/0245611 A1 is to flatten the wrinkles and folds of the large intestine wall and to prevent random rotation of said capsule endoscope for better quality of image capturing. The expandable module is an inflatable balloon that is inflated by the reaction of two substances, while the inflating mechanism is a solenoid for opening a valve to expose one reaction substance to another reaction substance.
US 20120209083 A1 discloses a method of locating an ingested capsule. The ingestible capsule includes a pH sensor and a pressure sensor. The method involves recording pH measurements from the pH sensor and recording pressure measurements from the pressure sensor. However, the method requires both the recorded pH measurements and pressure measurements to determine the location.
CN 202843608U discloses a Bluetooth transponder system for capsule endoscope. The transponder system includes a Bluetooth module to communicate with a mobile phone and a portable recorder that can collect image from the capsule endoscope. The purpose of this invention is only to transmit images captured by the capsule endoscope to a mobile phone in real time.
US 2014/0135698A1 discloses a swallowable medication capsule for dispensing fluid medicine. This medication capsule includes a medication reservoir for the storage of medication, an actuator unit and a displaceable surface. The actuator unit can be a linear motor and the displaceable surface can be a piston. The purpose of this invention is only to propel medication out of the medication reservoir by a linear motor driven piston.